Heat Pumps: anyone have one/thought about it?

4:30pm on the promised day of someone coming to commission the system and give me some hot water and heating, absolute radio silence from Aira and nobody is answering the phones on their end.

Have been calling all day on-and-off and nothing. Nobody picking up the phones or answering emails.

Warning to ANYONE thinking of entertaining Aira - do not do it. Do not touch them with a bargepole - something is rotten on their side and they are clearly massively overstretched.
 
We haven't gotten rid of our normal boiler, but I have separate Daikin heat pump units throughout the house and outbuildings that I had installed a few years ago. All separate units except for one shared units, 5 condensers and 6 heads total. Cost very little to run, and super cost-effective for the outside office (single-skinned brick room at the back of the garage) and cabin (45mm uninsulated wood)
 
had a call from my installer today, they finally got the go ahead from the DNO. So thankfully the fuse upgrade was enough and they dont need to de loop the supply and dig all my neighbours gardens up.

work starts on the 14th oct
 
glitch said:
4:30pm on the promised day of someone coming to commission the system and give me some hot water and heating, absolute radio silence from Aira and nobody is answering the phones on their end.

Have been calling all day on-and-off and nothing. Nobody picking up the phones or answering emails.

Warning to ANYONE thinking of entertaining Aira - do not do it. Do not touch them with a bargepole - something is rotten on their side and they are clearly massively overstretched.
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Shocker, they are a big multinational installer as well...
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
Shocker, they are a big multinational installer as well...
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Aside from my own issues, the lack of contact for any customer yesterday was shocking. Unless they have blocked my number (I mean, come on...) you could not seem to get through to any of the options on their main UK number throughout yesterday - they all rang out with no messaging system picking up after a time.

Could share my call logs to prove this, but people will have to trust I am not saying this for internet points.

ryhoper1 said:
was it actually aira that installed it or are they using contractors?
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Oh, it was Aira. All branded vans, clothing and equipment.
 
Some more examples of the mess they made and left.

The state of the installation area they have left. All those pieces of black stuff on the floor are from a plumber cutting the lagging with a rusty spoon instead of using the proper tools.

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"This is going to be a really easy job"

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"We'll treat your home like it's ours"

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"We won't need to drill anything out, if we have to we can lift floors"

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Not good.

My octopus installers were about as good as you can reasonably expect when it came to clean up.

They cleared away their equipment, wiped stuff down and went round with a Henry to leave the place as clean and tidy as possible every day.

They did have to do a bit of damage where pipework needed to be adjusted around radiators etc but it was both explained ahead of time and kept to a minimum. Holes were filled which just needed a quick sand and paint after they left.
 
With all due respect, isn't that literally mid job? It still has floor covering down...

Edit: missed post 739, lol. Ooof.
 
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I'm looking at the possibility of installing an ASHP. The only feasible location to install it would be for it to be on the corner of the patio as shown below. Obviously there will be occasions where we'd like to sit out on the patio, but I'm a bit wary about the noise it would generate and whether that would spoil a nice peaceful drink out on the patio in the evening. Anyone got any advice or have a similar setup?

The only other option would be to get a split system and put it at the bottom of the garden. Not too keen on that option though.


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Generally speaking you won’t be running your heat pump when it’s warm enough to be sat outside. Modern heat pumps are not noisy either, when it’s on tick over which will be 90% of the time, it’s basically just fan and the movement of the air through the fins of the radiator which is the loudest element.

You can do the hot water whenever you like, don’t do it when you’ll be sat outside as the heat pump will be running a lot harder. I do mine overnight.

TLDR - it will probably be fine.
 
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NotAGolf said:
I'm looking at the possibility of installing an ASHP. The only feasible location to install it would be for it to be on the corner of the patio as shown below. Obviously there will be occasions where we'd like to sit out on the patio, but I'm a bit wary about the noise it would generate and whether that would spoil a nice peaceful drink out on the patio in the evening. Anyone got any advice or have a similar setup?

The only other option would be to get a split system and put it at the bottom of the garden. Not too keen on that option though.
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In that location would the heat pump be away from any doors / windows too?

@glitch - any updates on your install?
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
You can do the hot water whenever you like, don’t do it when you’ll be sat outside as the heat pump will be running a lot harder. I do mine overnight.
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What temp are you heating your hot water to, and how long is it staying hot for?

I'm wondering whether I should be tweaking my HW settings, as essentially it's monitoring tank temps 24/7 and re-heating whenever it drops below 42c (from memory!).

Edit: The reason I have this setup is I was under the impression heating from 42c to storage temp (48c from memory) is more efficient than letting it get colder, and reheating at set times ready for the day.
 
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It’s a 180L joule tank and we don’t use a whole tank in a day so we just heat it once to 50C overnight.

I turned off automatic re-heat mode as it was a waste of solar/battery power which I want to save for heating over the winter and we seldom needed a reheat in the day. Going up to 50C uses more energy but I’m only paying 7p overnight so I’m not too worried what the COP is.

I think the HP is in set point mode for hot water so it’s heating at a fixed flow temperature which is not ideal but heats the cylinder very quickly. I should probably change but as mentioned power is so cheap, the savings will be tiny. I’ll get round to it one day.

My heating is set to come on right away after the hot water cycle (when on which it currently isn’t) so all the residual heat in the system will get pushed into the heating system right away.

I think when I had mine set to reheat it would heat to 48 overnight, the reheat target temperature was 43c with a hysteresis of 8 so it wouldn’t reheat until it dropped down to 35C.

Don’t forget the temperature sensor is in the middle of the tank so even at 35C it wouldn’t reheat until be a lot hotter at the top of the tank.
 
Stu999 said:
In that location would the heat pump be away from any doors / windows too?
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So the L part of the house that the heat pump backs onto will be a WC and utility room. It's a single storey extension, but there will be a bedroom above it, albeit set back 1m or so from the ground floor.

The patio will back onto some big bifolds in the kitchen/diner area.
 
Stu999 said:
Yeah, I think it’s about a meter from openings and boundaries.
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The openings thing is in relation to R290 heat pumps due to the refrigerant being propane. Mines R32 and under a window.

It’s also extremely strict for the actual risk (IMO of course). There is hardly any propane in them and the chance of enough getting into your house via a window from the open air is near zero.

Meanwhile we pipe methane directly into peoples homes without a care in the world.
 
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